I provide an insider's view of the modern business world based on my years of experience working as an executive and consultant within the Global 3000. I am the CEO for Raynforest Inc, an Influencer Marketing Network, and the author of Socialized! which some call “the playbook for Social Business”. Want to learn more? Follow me on Twitter @MarkFidelman, Facebook, or circle me on Google+.

A.G. Lafley – Procter & Gamble

A.G. is broadly recognized for his business leadership. He was awarded “CEO of the Year 2006″ by Chief Executive Magazineand the Peter G. Peterson Award for Business Statesmanship presented by the CED in 2009. In 2010, Lafley received the Edison Achievement Award, in recognition of his contributions to innovation, marketing, and human-centered design.

Photo and Bio Source: Wikipedia.org

Steve Jobs – Apple & Pixar

Steve Jobs has widely been referred to as “legendary”, a “futurist” or simply “visionary”, and has been described as the “Father of the Digital Revolution”, a “master of innovation”, and a “design perfectionist”.

Photo and Bio Source: Wikipedia.org

Sure there are a lot of unsung heroes who surround these folks. It’s no surprise they have built great teams.

Tomorrow, I’ll be covering the younger, and more current, game changing CEOs. Those that deserve our attention going forward.

But I’m sure you can think of more CEOs that I may have missed. Please add them in the comments below. It’s time we celebrate their accomplishments.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.

Comments

Great to see you advocating for more inspired leaders who focus their full passion on delivering awesome experiences to customers. The world seems ready for a change beyond the professional manager focused only on extracting profits for shareholders. The business world today has far too many professional managers and not enough creative leadership. As a society, we can…and must…do better.

Albert Einstein definitely had it right when he noted that “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

Great points, but I see it slightly differently. We don’t have or celebrate risk takers anymore. We have all become very marginal or incremental in our thinking. In my lifetime I haven’t seen a politician or business leader take on any of our major challenges. Not one, even though we’ve had a half dozen “education presidents” and several “energy presidents.”

I believe the other lie that is perpetuated is about “job creation.” Only demand creates jobs and that comes from solving problems or providing something that is economically viable and necessary. Occasionally we have the blue-ribbon commissions or business roundtables, but nothing comes of it.

In our society we seek immediate gratification and are either unwilling to tackle something or we’ve convinced ourselves it can’t be solved. The analogy would be someone choosing to run a 10k race and preparing for the 6.1 mile effort. Few people will enter a race that they have no idea how long it will be.

I began an effort 10 years ago to solve 5 major problems, not knowing it would take that long but willing to go the distance. Now it’s time to demonstrate them. My work is here: http://www.solutioneur.com

We need to foster an environment of possibility and seek, support and celebrate those that are willing to go beyond incremental innovation and find real, economically viable solutions. That will create jobs and rekindle the lost “American spirit.”

Andrew, can’t disagree about long term thinking – but there are immediate things that can be done to give employers incentives to hire people. There’s a lot of cash sitting in corporate coffers, and it’s not being used because of various economic issues.

What I am saying is identify and celebrate the risk takers, the innovators, the movers and shakers to stimulate more economic investment and activity to create jobs. Instead, we focus on the Actor, Sports Star or other talented individuals that lead only to their wealth creation and a securing of their job.

We can’t just use incentives for employers, we need purpose. We have an energy problem, and education problem, an agriculture problem and many others. That isn’t about “long-term” thinking, we’ve been thinking about and talking about these things for decades. It’s about solutions.

We need to put people to work in areas that benefit society without creating additional burdens and solving problems with economically-viable solutions creates real jobs.

There are 21 million people jobless this year. Simply suggesting giving incentives to employers won’t make a dent in that number.

Why is this so hard to understand? DEMAND creates jobs, not government or corporations. Those two institutions should both seek to satisfy real demand and make it as easy and as well regulated as possible. Truth is, we’ve all become quite lazy in America and simply want to cast blame. That’s not productive.

In order to create demand (and the resulting jobs) we must solve some major problems like clean energy, agriculture, education, urban living and even more effective charitable giving. Solutions need to be economically viable, too. For instance, clean energy NEEDS to be affordable and reliable.